This invention relates to a data processing technique for transforming input data and generating output data, and in particular, to a technique for verifying whether the process of transforming the data is anomalous or not.
In a sales control system for a series of jobs including production to sales in a convenience store or the like, the data, such as the stock or the sales amount, input for each job are totalized and transformed at a data center or the like and utilized for stock control and sales control.
Upon detection of an anomaly in given transformed data, the user verifies the anomaly state and the cause thereof by referencing the log output from the system. The method available for aiding in the verification work includes a method which indicates a particular process whose execution has generated the data to be verified, a method in which the object to be verified is determined by identifying a particular data which has developed an anomaly, or a method in which the route leading to the process causing an anomaly and the data generated is specified.
JP-A-2001-331354 (Patent Document 1) discloses a technique for obtaining the history of transformed data (hereinafter sometimes referred to as the transformed-data history) as a hierarchical structure of the data and the process required for generation of an arbitrary data. Also, JP-A-7-56890 (Patent Document 2) discloses a technique for determining an anomaly or not of specified data such as the sales amount with high accuracy using statistical analysis. Further, JP-A-6-309584 (Patent Document 3) discloses a technique for specifying a route to the cause of an anomaly by scoring the process of generating the anomaly in such a field as a plant where candidates for an anomaly to be generated are known in advance.